Irina Park
Alabama raked in nearly $13 million last year from the paychecks of state prisoners while on work release—a system being sued over claims of a “labor trafficking scheme” and slave labor. This “scheme” generates $450 million a year for the state of Alabama and provides monopolies a steady supply of available workers from the prison system—workers who risk disciplinary action if they refuse, including being sent to solitary confinement.
Work release deems people who are incarcerated safe for corporate use. They work regular jobs in public unsupervised, alongside the public, despite the state simultaneously arguing that it is not safe for them to sleep in their own homes. In some states, they are not even classified as employees, excluding them from workers’ compensation benefits as well as minimum standards for health and safety on the job.
The lawsuit, filed one year ago, named Alabama’s policies of prison labor systemically unconstitutional, challenging over-detention and poor working conditions of Alabama’s prisoners on work release. It also seeks to dismantle the scheme, reform Alabama’s parole systems, and compensate imprisoned Alabamians for their labor.
Prison labor is inherently coercive and not exclusive to Alabama. During this year’s electoral farce, California voters rejected a measure to ban forced labor in any form—including as punishment for crime. Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of people who are imprisoned are put to work fighting wildfires, maintaining roads, operating heavy machinery, working on industrial farms and meat processing plans. This extends to state and municipal agencies, colleges and nonprofits, as well as some of the largest monopolies in the country, like Walmart, Hyundai, Tyson Foods, and Burger King. These workers earn an average of 13 to 52 cents per hour and produce $11 billion worth of goods and services, often working in dangerous conditions. Monopolies take advantage of the cheap labor the prison system can provide them, while the states marginally benefit from the cuts they take from each worker’s paycheck—some deducting up to 60% off the top, with workers often taking home less than a third of what they are given.
Jobs inside prisons pay some people pennies an hour or nothing at all. In Georgia, firefighters who are in prison are paid nothing, though they fill a vital worker shortage as the sole responders for many emergencies.
Prison labor is not cost effective, creating a burden on taxpayers while offering tax breaks and cutting labor costs for the richest corporations. Because prisoners do not pay to reproduce their own labor, as regular workers do, the coercive and forced system of labor can justify all manner of abuse and a lack of compensation approximating slavery. Prisoners can and do protest their conditions, however the reprisals are severe and strikes are currently still rare. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prisoners cannot join or form unions, forcing their labor struggles to take place illegally. The hyper-exploitation of prisoners is designed to offset the high cost of confining such a large population, which is necessary to the ruling class state in order to maintain its dominant position.
